By Patrick Aysseh, President of Tomorrow Networks (a division of Aptus Health)

Why did a generation of kids want their MTV? At the very basic level, it was the exposure to new, easily digestible content — whether you were a metal-head, into new wave, or a music newshound — 24 hours a day.

Of course times have changed over the past 35 years and the way many Americans engage with media has changed too. Digital — and more specifically, mobile channels — have captured the attention of nearly every generation, giving us virtually any kind of content we need, in the format we value, whenever and wherever we want it. We don’t have to be tethered to a TV or computer (or the living room of that friend who had cable TV back in the 1980s) to engage deeply with content that offers incredibly in-the-moment relevance. And collectively, we’re engaging with mobile longer and more frequently than through other channels.

Savvy advertisers are taking advantage of this trend. In fact, recent U.S. ad spending reports suggest that $69B will be spent in digital advertising (excluding video) in 2016. About two-thirds of that spend — that’s $44 billion — will be mobile. According to the report, by 2020, mobile ad spend will be on par with television advertising budgets.

Brands have a huge opportunity to leverage this mobile environment to responsibly and respectfully connect and engage with their targets in hyper-local, hyper-targeted and thus hyper-effective ways. The most successful campaigns must be contextually relevant enough to not only understand where people are going in the real world — but also what motivates them to act in those real-world scenarios.

That means factoring in other characteristics that influence and drive health decisions — such as insurance access, purchasing patterns, demographic and psychographic markers, behavioral indicators, and more — to create more scalable, more meaningful and more accurate segmentation and campaign targeting that people actually appreciate and value.

Let’s say a pharma client has a new diabetes medication launching in a crowded market. As a foundation for the mobile advertising campaign for this client, we would develop a heat map of the U.S. based on multiple criteria including regional diabetes prevalence rates, Rx market volume, managed markets access, demographic data and historical ad performance metrics. We can then execute a point-of-care and ZIP code level geo-targeting campaign to maximize reach among these target consumers — based on their real-world activities.

As the campaign progresses, we gain more insights into the people who received the ad creative by leveraging consumer data from partners like Neustar. This highlights, for example, which segments are leading a healthier lifestyle (based on interactions with their physician, the foods they eat and more) as opposed to a more sedentary lifestyle. Such rich data allows us to further optimize the campaign by segmenting our original consumer groups and hyper-target them at places like gyms and fast food restaurants with new creative that addresses their lifestyles.

This disciplined real-world approach easily scales into areas that go far beyond the pill, including food, lifestyle, pharmacy/OTC and other sectors. After all, personalized, relevant messaging is something that all marketers seek — and what today’s savvy consumers expect.